The present invention relates equipment and methods used to perform triage in the event of a mass casualty incident. Natural and man-made disasters are unfortunately a common occurrence. Examples of such incidents include but are not limited to natural disasters such as hurricanes and forest fires, train wrecks, multi-vehicle highway accidents, airplane crashes and terrorist attacks. In the past, certain responses by Emergency Medical Services (EMS) have demonstrated that EMS systems may fail due to poor communication, inefficient uses of available systems and conflicting codes, lack of a common, flexible, predesigned structure, and lack of predefined methods to integrate inter-agency requirements. This invention provides a systematic and efficient improvement of the equipment and methods used to mark a triage area, and which can contribute to creating a nation-wide, uniform response effort.